The Hardest Thing In This World Is To Live In It
by tocatchathief
Summary: AU after "The Gift" S5. Five years after Buffy sacrifices everything for the world, paths of the people  living and undead  she left behind intertwine again. Spike/Dawn. M for potential later chapters.


**Author's Note:** This story takes place post-Season 5 and follows canon through "The Gift" but after that breaks off. Buffy was never brought back from the dead. Thanks to my friend Jenn for helping to inspire me to write this.

* * *

She wasn't supposed to be there. There was no reason for a young woman to be wandering around a cemetery in the wee hours of the morning with sunrise still hours away. He saw her and knows that he could make it to her an eternity before she even knew he was there.

If he wanted to, he could have lunged and caught her and drank from her like she was a sodding Yoohoo.

But his arrangement with the witch five years ago had ruled that out. Little Red and her girlfriend had done their best to deactivate the chip in his head and he'd promised to only attack when necessary.

The bloody Scoobies had been so reluctant to let him out at large, but they needed him. Needed a monster willing to turn himself into a champion. Needed him and they knew that not all of the things that went bump in the night were inhuman, hell – sometimes evil lurked in humans that anything the Hellmouth spat out couldn't even dream to compete with.

So he just watched this girl's slender form as she slinks through the graveyard. Probably some sorority bint sent out on a dare so that she could pledge. He thought about sneaking up behind her, just to scare her out of her wits and teach them some common sense. Better him than someone who wouldn't let her go. But he got distracted but her stride – her posture. All of it screamed _Summers_ to him. All of it screamed _Slayer_.

Five years ago, she'd sacrificed herself off of that tower for all of them. And now only the few of them remembered her name, knew what she'd done. It didn't haunt him the way it had immediately following. It only took him two years to realize he hadn't truly loved her – not the way someone's supposed to love, anyway (whether their heart beats or not). He'd spent the recent three years promising to repay her. To protect what she'd done and died for. He wasn't even sure why. He just still felt honor-bound after all this time.

Which brought him right back to the girl. The one that moved just like her through the cemetery that was his. That had once been _hers_ to patrol.

It was a slow night otherwise, so he just watched her as she stepped carefully through the ill-lit area. She wasn't nervous like other teenagers on dares that he'd seen flock through there. She moved deliberately, calmly, with purpose. Just like _her_.

He stuck to the shadows as he trailed behind her. He told himself it was for lack of better thing to do and not because of the memories she evoked. If the long braid of hair were only blond instead of chestnut, he could have closed his eyes and pretended it _was_ the Slayer and it alleviated some of that feeling he still hadn't managed to shake. It wasn't remorse or guilt – soulless creatures didn't feel those things. But it was still _something_ that didn't sit quite right with him.

Freezing in his tracks, if he had breath in him – it would have hitched in his throat. He watched the girl stop in front of a tombstone and stoop down.

He knew that spot. Knew that tombstone. Fuck if he was going to let some bloody bint fulfill her sorority rites there.

He was behind her before anyone would have been able to blink, the anger in him surging, he was ready to throttle her. But he didn't count on her being ready to. She swirled around, cross in her left hand and a stake in fisted in her right, pulled back and ready before the brief flicker of recognition hit both of them like a ton of bricks.

"Spike," she breathed out, eyes widening.

"Little bit," his eyebrow quirked up as he took in the sight of Dawn Summers, the girl he hadn't seen in three years. "Or...not-so-little bit, I s'pose."


End file.
